Ukrainians not to be punished for using prohibited Russian social networks

No Ukrainian citizens will be held accountable for using prohibited Russian social networking sites, Valentyn Petrov, the head of the information security service at the secretariat of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), said on Friday.

"We don't touch the content, and even if some user [gets access] - there are many ways of going around [the ban] now, various VPN, TOR, you can use them - users will not be punished for it in any way," Petrov said on 1 plus 1 TV channel.

There will be no punishment even for viewing illegal content on these social networks, such as child pornography, because investigative actions will be impossible in such situations as the servers are located in Russia, he said.

The sanctions have been imposed not on the VKontakte or Odnoklassniki services as such, but on the legal entities that own them, but the sanctions envisage restrictions on these companies' access to public telecommunications networks, Petrov said.